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Newsletter #5—August 2025
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Know Your Enemy
The open internet faces an unprecedented threat, not from authoritarian governments alone, but from a coalition of moral crusaders wielding child protection as their weapon of choice. Under the banner of safeguarding minors, a diverse alliance of religious conservatives, radical feminists, anti-sex work activists, and opportunistic politicians has manufactured a climate of moral panic that now threatens to fundamentally reshape digital expression and commerce.
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What makes this movement particularly insidious is its strategic deployment of child welfare rhetoric to advance broader censorship agendas. By framing any opposition as being "pro-child abuse," these groups have created a rhetorical trap that makes reasoned debate nearly impossible. The result is a chilling effect that extends far beyond actual child protection, ensnaring legitimate adult content, LGBTQ+ expression, sex education, and artistic freedom in an ever-widening net of restriction.
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The Architecture of Digital Puritanism
At the forefront of this crusade stands the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), formerly known as Morality in Media. Founded by an interfaith coalition of clergy, NCOSE has spent decades attempting to link pornography with sexual abuse, despite a dearth of empirical evidence supporting such a connection. The organization has systematically pressured companies like Amazon and Steam to remove lawful content, leveraging public relations campaigns that conflate consensual adult material with exploitation.
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Internationally, a similar role is occupied by an influential anti-trafficking coalition called ECPAT, which has pushed to expand child pornography laws to encompass virtual images, fictional representations, and even role-playing between consenting adults—despite explicitly acknowledging the lack of empirical support for its position. This represents a dramatic departure from traditional child protection, which focused on preventing actual harm to real children, toward policing imagination and fantasy itself. This position has since become normalized throughout the sector, with INHOPE, a global network of child abuse reporting hotlines, also resisting calls from NGOs to stop treating cartoons as equivalent to real abuse imagery.
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The movement's reach extends globally through organizations like Australia's Collective Shout, which has made headlines for pressuring platforms to remove taboo-themed adult games, and even campaigns targeting adult fetish items on Etsy. Their recent claims of responsibility for content removals demonstrate how effectively these groups leverage moral panic to achieve corporate compliance without legal mandate. Australian regulator the eSafety Commissioner, which oversees Australia's social media ban for under 16's, is aligned with this agenda also, having once recorded a podcast with NCOSE representatives.
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Things don't get better in the United Kingdom. Its National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was among those pushing hard for the new age restrictions that we discussed in our last newsletter, despite a history of using falsified research in their advocacy, and at one time even pushing Satanic sex panic myths. The organization also lost the trust of the LGBTQ+ community after sacking its one-time transgender spokesperson Munroe Bergdorf after transphobic activists falsely labeled her a “porn model.”
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The Broader Impact: From Moral Panic to Digital Purge
This coalition of actors—spanning religious conservatives, radical feminists, and opportunistic regulators—has created a tipping point where the open internet is being sacrificed to appease child safety extremism. Payment networks like PayPal are increasingly shutting down accounts linked to adult content, even when legal, under pressure from groups like Collective Shout and NCOSE. Worldwide age-verification mandates, initially aimed at pornography, are expanding to cover vague categories of “harmful” content, threatening access to information on topics like sexual health, gender identity, and non-normative relationships.
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The movement's success stems largely from its ability to pressure risk-averse corporations into overcompliance. Payment processors, hosting services, and platforms increasingly implement broad content restrictions that go far beyond legal requirements, creating a privatized censorship system that operates without due process or meaningful appeal mechanisms.
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This corporate censorship particularly impacts marginalized creators and communities. LGBTQ+ content creators report increased difficulty monetizing their work, as platforms err on the side of restriction rather than risk association with anything that might be deemed "inappropriate for minors." The result is a digital landscape increasingly hostile to non-mainstream expressions of sexuality and identity.
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The cumulative effect of these pressures—moral panic campaigns, government overreach, corporate risk aversion, and technological surveillance—threatens to transform the internet from an open platform for diverse expression into a sanitized, monitored space suitable only for the most conventional content.
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Toward Evidence-Based Approaches
In contrast to this panic-driven approach, a growing coalition of researchers, digital rights advocates, and sex-positive organizations promotes evidence-based child protection that doesn't sacrifice fundamental freedoms. They emphasize approaches that:
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Focus resources on actual child exploitation rather than fictional or consensual adult content
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Recognize the difference between age-appropriate restrictions and blanket censorship
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Support comprehensive sex education rather than moral abstinence-only approaches
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Protect the privacy and expression rights of all users, including marginalized communities
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Base policy on empirical evidence rather than moral assumptions
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A number of subject matter experts within this movement are part of COSL. For example, among our Board of Directors are trauma-aware therapist Fay Brown, and Doctor of Social Work Kristin Spooner (who also manages our Cyberbullying and Abuse priority area). Our Advisors come from diverse academic, professional, and activist backgrounds, including film and cultural studies, online censorship and free expression advocacy, law and psychology, economics and communications, journalism on sex work and civil liberties, queer and transgender cultural research, and responsible AI.
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We'd like you to join us too. If you are looking for ways to actively defend the open internet, COSL provides a home for your efforts. Through our fiscal sponsorship model, activists and researchers can launch projects under our nonprofit umbrella, gaining access to administrative, fundraising, and legal support while staying focused on their mission. Working through COSL ensures your energy contributes to a coordinated movement rather than standing alone, while still preserving your project’s independence.
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The current trajectory toward digital puritanism serves neither children nor society. Real child protection requires nuanced, evidence-based approaches that distinguish between actual harm and moral disapproval. The open internet—with all its messy complexity—remains one of our most powerful tools for human connection, creativity, and progress. We must not sacrifice it on the altar of manufactured moral panic. By volunteering time or donating money to COSL, you can help counter digital puritanism with evidence-based advocacy, solidarity, and the creativity that only diverse communities can bring.
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The Latest from Our Blog
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The Hidden Dangers of Digital ID Verification Laws
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While debates around digital ID verification laws often center on censorship and privacy concerns, there's a more sinister dimension to these policies that deserves urgent attention. The real-world safety risks posed by mandatory ID verification systems could have devastating consequences for millions of people—and we're not talking about them nearly enough. The Honeypot Problem: A Hacker's Dream Come True When …
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Beyond the Filter: Fan Refuge
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In this episode of Beyond the Filter, hosts Jeremy and Brandy delve into the creation of Fan Refuge, a new social media platform designed for fans by fans. Jeremy shares insights into how Fan Refuge aims to provide a censorship-free space while ensuring user safety through innovative tools and community guidelines. Discover the challenges and inspirations behind this project, and …
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Censorship isn't the answer
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Censorship has been a hot button issue recently after payment processors, under the noise generated by the Australian pro-censorship group Collective Shout pressured both Steam and itch.io to censor adult content under the misguided direction of “protecting children” (tldr: it has nothing to do with “protecting children” and everything to do with censoring anything about sex, including queer media). Censorship isn’t the answer Why …
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New COSL Amicus Brief to Push Back Against Censorship in Your Home
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COSL is pleased to announce that we will be filing an amicus brief in an important case in the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, against a troubling expansion of federal prosecutorial power into the most private spheres of individual expression. The case forms part of our broader advocacy campaign, Drawing the Line (formerly under the working title, Justice for Real Survivors), which aims to ensure that real sexual abuse should never be conflated with art or fiction.
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At issue is the government's attempt to criminalize the private possession and creation of virtual obscene material under 18 U.S.C. § 1466A, directly challenging the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Stanley v. Georgia that established an unequivocal right to possess even obscene material within one's home. This case represents the thin end of the wedge—if the government succeeds in carving out exceptions to Stanley's broad privacy protections based on the fictional content of virtual depictions, it opens the door to increasingly expansive content-based restrictions that could ultimately eviscerate the constitutional sanctuary of the home.
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The brief's civil liberties arguments expose the slippery slope inherent in the government's position: once authorities can criminalize private digital expression based on its fictional subject matter, the distinction between regulating conduct and policing thought itself begins to collapse. As the brief warns, this prosecutorial theory could extend to criminalizing individuals who process personal trauma through private creative expression, maintain personal journals about difficult experiences, or engage in any form of private digital creativity that the state deems morally objectionable.
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By conflating virtual depictions with actual child exploitation—despite the Supreme Court's clear holding in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition that fictional content deserves First Amendment protection—the government seeks to bypass constitutional safeguards through a dangerous expansion of child pornography statutes into realms where no actual children are harmed, setting a precedent that could fundamentally reshape the boundaries between private expression and state control.
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We'll be sharing the full amicus brief once it has been filed in the Seventh Circuit. You can stay informed by reading this newsletter or following our social media accounts such as Bluesky and LinkedIn.
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How to Protect Yourself from Online Attacks
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the constant news of data breaches, phishing scams, or companies tracking your every move online, you’re not alone. Digital Privacy and Safety: A Basic Guide is the perfect starting point for anyone who wants to take control of their personal information—no tech degree required. This easy-to-follow guide walks you through the most common threats you face, from scam texts to data brokers, and gives you practical, step-by-step tools to protect yourself right away.
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Whether you’re new to online safety or already know a bit about password managers and multi-factor authentication, this guide meets you where you are. You’ll learn how to secure your devices, choose privacy-friendly apps, lock down your home network, and even protect yourself from tracking in your car or smart home devices. Your journey to better digital privacy starts with one click—read the full guide here and take your first step toward a safer, more private online life.
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Volunteer With Us
COSL relaunched this year, but we're still building out the team that we need to make a real difference! Want to help protect digital rights and online safety while building real-world skills? COSL is looking for passionate volunteers to join our team! Here are two key roles we’re recruiting for:
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Membership Officer – Help grow our community! You’ll welcome new members, create accounts on our forum and website, promote membership through social media and newsletters, and work with our SEO Specialist to track conversions. This role is perfect for someone organized, friendly, and excited about community-building.
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Activist – Be on the front lines of advocacy for digital freedom. You’ll identify opportunities to influence policy, run online campaigns, engage with decision-makers, and build coalitions locally and globally. This role is ideal for someone passionate about digital rights and eager to make an impact on a global stage.
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Interested? Reach out today and be part of the movement to safeguard online freedom and safety!
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Support our work!
Pledging your monthly support for our work is the best way that you can support us, because it gives us the stability to plan ahead. You can pledge your support at three levels.
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Keep In Touch With Us
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